The Indian Government has approved a budget of $335M (Rs1,500 crore) for the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to develop India’s latest UAS, the Rustom-H.
This was disclosed by the chief controller, research and development of DRDO, W Selvamurthy, in Pune at a press meeting held on the sidelines of the second national symposium on robotics and autonomous vehicles held at the Research and Development Establishment, Engineers, R&DE (E).
Selvamurthy said that the Rustom-H would be India’s latest medium altitude (20 km), long range (24 hours endurance) and heavy payload (500 kg) UAV and would be developed over five years. “We are also keen to develop a micro UAV the size of a cockroach,’’ he added. Emphasising that future wars would increasingly see the use of unmanned vehicles, Selvamurthy said the US Army had projected that by 2035, one-third of their hardware would comprise only unmanned vehicles.
The Rustom-H would be developed by the Aeronautical Development Establishment, a Bangalore-based DRDO laboratory. Selvamurthy said a special UAV centre would be soon developed in Chitradurga (Karnataka) to facilitate all test flights and demonstrations of Rustom-H and other UAVs of the future.
Source: DNA India
Referring to ’20 km’ as medium altitude seems quite strange. These performance specifications are higher than the Global Hawk can actually operate, though with a lighter payload.
Could the Indians be planning for 10 km rather than 20 km?